Luke Hildyard, deputy
director of High Pay Centre, said remuneration needs to be
accountable to people from outside the corporate elite.

Speaking to RT, he said: “A pay package of this size seems
excessive, but three out of four members of the BP remuneration
committee are also former top executives and management
consultants, who are unlikely to see anything out of the ordinary
about a multi-million pound pay package.

“Former executives are instinctively sympathetic to other
people in their position and think they deserve to paid huge
amounts of money. They perhaps don't understand how a £1.7
million pension payment might look to ordinary workers across the
wider economy who are seeing their pensions cut to the bone.

“This type of arrangement is fairly typical of a major UK
company and highlights why the executive pay setting process
needs to be accountable to people from outside the executive
class,” he added.